I photographed this about 200 feet from our house as the sun was going down, at 3:20 pm in Anchorage, Alaska.

We’re facing the Chugach Mountains, directly east. I’m surmising the trees on the right are more gorgeous because the sun had risen to the right in the SE and set in the SW, so those on the right experienced no direct sunlight (except the top branches), while those on the left probably saw about 4 hours of sun, melting some of the hoar frost.

But still, much of the frost remains, which shows how little heat the sun produces this time of year, because it stays so low, where its intensity is held back by the earth’s atmosphere. The official high temp was 17° — plenty warm enough for the sun to melt the frost if it had more oomph.

Official sunrise-sunset times were 10:11 am – 3:59 pm, but the sun is below the mountains during some of that period.

raspberryfrosted_1100

January 4, 2017

Canon 5Ds R

Raspberry Road